The field for the Eurocup Last 32 is set!

The field for the 2014-15 Eurocup Last 32 is set. The second stage of competition’s 13th season will start January 6, 2015, and has all the ingredients to add to the Eurocup’s rich tradition, featuring teams from 15 different countries, no less than four former Eurocup champions, and seven reigning national champions.

With 32 teams on the quest to be crowned 2015 Eurocup champion – and to earn a place in the 2015-16 Turkish Airlines Euroleague – the field is comprised of 24 teams that made their way through the Eurocup Regular Season, plus eight teams that placed fifth and sixth in their Euroleague Regular Season groups. These 32 teams have been - according to the place they finished in their respective groups - divided into eight groups of four teams. From January 6 through and February 11, each club is set to play three new opponents it has not yet faced this season, and the top two from each Last 32 group will advance to the two-game eighthfinals series.

This is the second year in a row that Euroleague teams join the Eurocup and this time that group of teams includes three-time titlist and the defending Eurocup champion Valencia Basket and 2011 Eurocup champion Unics Kazan. Also coming to the Eurocup are four reigning national champions –FC Bayern Munich of Greece, Cedevita Zagreb of Croatia, Limoges CSP of France and PGE Turow Zgorzelec of Poland. Dinamo Banco di Sardegna Sassari from Italy and Neptunas Klaipeda from Lithuania also join the competition.

They will all battle the 24 teams that qualified through the Eurocup regular season. That list of teams is highlighted by former champions and first-place finishers in their respective groups – Khimki Moscow Region, Lietuvos Rytas and Lokomotiv Kuban Krasnodar. The latter is one of two undefeated teams through 10 games, with the other being Herbalife Gran Canaria Las Palmas.

Among the 32 teams is another club that has played in a Eurocup title game – Baloncesto Seville – and three other domestic champs in CEZ Basketball Nymburk of the Czech Republic, CSU Asesoft Ploiesti of Romania and Buducnost VOLI Podgorica of Montenegro. The list also has two newcomers that are making the best of their Eurocup debuts – JDA Dijon from France and Krasny Oktyabr Volgograd from Russia.

The most represented countries with five teams each are France (Strasbourg, SLUC Nancy, Paris Levallois, Dijon and Limoges) and (Khimki, Lokomotiv, Oktyabr, Zenit St. Petersburg and Unics), while and Spain has four clubs (Valencia, Gran Canaria, Sevilla, CAI Zaragoza) and Turkey and (Banvit Bandirma, Besiktas Integral Forex Istanbul and Pinar Karsiyaka) Italy (Sassari, FoxTown Cantu, Virtus Rome) have three each. The remaining teams are Brose Baskets Bamberg of Germany, Union Olimpija Ljubljana of Slovenia and PAOK Thessaloniki of Greece.